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“There, you’re just about done. What do you think?” Emil turned Tuuri around to face the mirror.
“EEEEE!!!! I love it!” she squealed. She reached tentative fingers up to touch the swirl Emil had coaxed her bangs to form. “Are you sure it will stay like this?”
Emil huffed, chin lifted in mock-affront. “Of course it will! That hairspray is my own personal recipe, it should hold through a troll attack. As long as you don’t try to mess it up, it should be fine.” He glanced sideways at Reynir as he said that last part. No matter how many times he’d told the red-haired Icelander to stop touching his hair, Reynir just couldn’t seem to stop. The long braid looked like it always did—and unfortunately, the tufts of hair that framed his face did too, even though Emil had spent nearly an hour carefully pinning them back. There was no helping some people.
And speaking of people who needed help…
“Lalli, stop, let me do it.” Emil pushed the scout’s hands away and straightened the collar of Lalli’s jacket, creasing the folds so it would lie flat. “That’s better. Now let’s see if we can do something about your hair…” he reached to push Lalli’s hood back, only for Lalli to smack his hand and back away with a hiss.
“Lalli,” Emil sighed in exasperation, “you can’t keep that on all night, you’re going to get overheated.” Not that the words meant anything to Lalli; Emil’s handful of Finnish vocabulary didn’t cover this kind of situation, so he’d spoken in his native tongue.
Tuuri tore herself away from the mirror and murmured a few words to her cousin. His one-word reply needed no translation.
Tuuri looked at Emil and shrugged. “Sorry, he’s being stubborn. He might be better off wearing it, honestly. Sounds like there’s quite a crowd out there to see us.”
“I know,” Emil said, reaching over to tuck an errant strand of hair back into Tuuri’s coif. He was all too aware that a huge crowd had turned out tonight. Why else did she think he was fussing like this? It hadn’t mattered what they looked like out in the field, but this was a whole different world. Tonight, they weren’t a crew of misfit explorers. They were the Heroes of the Silent World, here to dazzle Reykjavik’s high society with tales of their adventure. If it went well, they’d be coming out of this with enough funding for a second trip. They couldn’t afford, in every sense of the word, to make a bad first impression.
Emil looked away from Lalli for a minute to survey the rest of his handiwork. Overall, he supposed it could have been worse. Tuuri practically glowed with excitement, and Reynir’s grin would probably distract people from the lamentable state of his fringe. He’d been issued a dress uniform along with the rest of them, even though he wasn’t originally part of the expedition, and he hadn’t stopped smiling since he put it on.
Sigrun was smiling too, looking almost as enthusiastic as if she was about to go on a troll hunt. In a way, she was; her troll-killing stories were something of a legend, and the crowd out there would eat them up. She wore her dress uniform like a second skin, though it was odd to see her wearing something that wasn’t covered in Mikkel’s ham-handed stitches and worn thin from scrubbed-out bloodstains. Mikkel himself looked imposing and dignified in his own new uniform and freshly-combed sideburns. He saw Emil looking and quirked his mouth.
“Everything to your satisfaction, O Master of the Wardrobe?”
Sigrun elbowed the burly medic. “C’mon, leave my right-hand worrier alone. Someone’s gotta make sure we’re all looking pretty, right?”
By now, Emil could take their teasing without wanting to sink into the floor from embarrassment. “Don’t worry, you two look prettier than a pair of long-legged jellytrolls. Uh...but, maybe don’t smile that much when you tell the story about being waist-deep in giant guts, Captain. Might put people off their food.”
Mikkel snorted. Sigrun guffawed and only smiled wider.
Emil shook his head and turned back to Lalli. “I don’t suppose I can convince you to smile a little, can I? Even if you won’t let me fix your hair, you could at least try?” He put on a big cheesy grin to demonstrate.
Lalli stared, then opened his eyes wide and showed his teeth. He tipped his head to the side, waiting for Emil’s approval.
“Uh...you know what, never mind. Just...be yourself.”
Lalli’s face relaxed, and Emil relaxed too. If Sigrun’s smile would worry people, Lalli’s attempt would send them running. “That’s better. I guess you’ll just have to be...mysterious. Yeah, let’s go with that.”
There wasn’t much left to do. A quick fluff to his own hair; a tweak to Mikkel’s collar; push Reynir’s shoulders back to remind him, yet again, not to slouch; yes, that was better.
“Right,” Emil said, taking a deep breath, “I think that does it. Captain? Lead the way.”
Sigrun grinned again—she was so going to spoil someone’s dinner—and led her team into the fray one last time.